The Dance of Death (20 page)

‘What is it?' I mumbled, heaving myself into a sitting position.

‘There's someone in the room,' she hissed.

I listened but could hear nothing. ‘Nonsense!' I said loudly.

‘Quiet, you fool,' she breathed in my ear, but then cursed. ‘There! You've frightened them away. Didn't you hear the door being opened and closed? Whoever it was has gone.'

I got out of bed, pulling back the curtains and lighting the candle. Long shadows leaped up the walls, but nothing else stirred. ‘You must have been mistaken,' I said.

She also had got out of bed and now came to stand beside me. ‘No. I distinctly heard someone moving.'

I went to the door and, opening it, peered into the blackness of the passageway outside. I held the candle aloft, but within its flickering radiance nothing moved. The only sound was the rhythmic snoring from behind one of the other closed doors. Master Armiger, or perhaps William Lackpenny, was sleeping off a too-large supper, partaken of too greedily and speedily for good digestion.

I withdrew into our bedchamber, closing, and this time not only latching but also bolting the door.

‘There's no one there,' I said. ‘You're imagining things. If someone had entered, I should have heard them. I'm a light sleeper.'

‘You sleep like the dead,' Eloise retorted angrily. ‘Even when you're tossing and turning and mumbling to yourself in your sleep, it's impossible to rouse you. You're like a log.'

The criticism stung me. I had always prided myself that I slept with one ear open, ready for any trouble that might be brewing – a man on the alert for any danger menacing himself or his family. I was on the verge of an indignant protest when I noticed that she was shivering, whether from cold or fear I had no means of knowing. But I did the instinctive thing and put an arm about her, drawing her close. She responded by returning the embrace.

‘It's all right,' I comforted her. ‘You saw me bolt the door. Nobody can get in.'

I was suddenly very aware of the warmth and shape of her body beneath the thin night-rail. I was also horrifyingly conscious of my own reaction, a reaction that must come to her attention at any moment. I hastily released her.

‘Get back to bed,' I ordered harshly. ‘The sheets will be like ice and we'll never get to sleep again.'

She made no move to obey, but did step away from me so that she was no longer sheltering within my arm.

‘I can smell something,' she complained, sniffing delicately.

‘What?' If I sounded irritable, it was because I was not only furious with myself for the way in which I had responded to her closeness, but also because I was beginning to suspect her motives. Was this whole episode simply an attempt to seduce me? Had she really heard anything, or was it all a fabrication?

‘What can you smell?' I repeated, walking round to the opposite side of the bed. The fire was now quite out, the remains of the logs bearded with flaking ash.

‘Dung, horses, the stables,' she answered. Her tone was as cold as the dead fire on the hearth.

I was about to tell her not to be stupid when I noticed the smell myself. There was definitely a whiff of something equine. Then I recollected and, by the light of the candle-flame examined my boots, which I had discarded, along with my other clothes, in a heap at the end of the bed. The soles were still caked with mud and straw and manure from my visit to John Bradshaw. Silently, and a little defiantly, I held them out for Eloise's inspection.

Her strictures on my grosser habits, such as not wiping my feet before coming indoors, were delivered with all the venom of a woman whose schemes had again been thwarted. At least, that was how it appeared to me.

But as she got back into the cold bed, she reiterated, ‘Someone was in this room, Roger, whatever you may think. And I know exactly what you think! But try not to be misled by your own conceited wishes.'

Without giving me time to catch my breath in order to phrase a suitable reply to this wicked calumny, she pulled the pillows down around her ears and the bedclothes up to meet them, leaving me standing at the foot of the bed feeling, and probably looking, remarkably foolish.

The remainder of our journey to Dover, the following day, was accomplished in almost complete silence between Eloise and myself, but the fact passed almost unnoticed in the general chatter of our enlarged party. Eloise and Mistress Armiger suddenly became great friends, their light-hearted chatter relieving them of the necessity of paying too much attention to their menfolk. Any animosity the former might have originally experienced towards the latter was submerged in the greater need to ignore my existence. As for myself, Will Lackpenny devoted himself to me and Master Armiger in equal measure, entertaining us and passing the weary miles with the sort of aimless conversation that needed little more than a polite smile or an infrequent nod of the head to give the impression that I was listening. The older man didn't even offer this much, seemingly sunk in his own all-absorbing reflections, but the fact that he made no interruption was enough encouragement for Will to continue with his artless prattle. John Bradshaw and Philip brought up the rear of our little cavalcade, exchanging nothing but the briefest and most necessary words concerning the journey.

To begin with, it was a day of sunshine and showers, the late-October sun occasionally emerging to stain fields and woodland pathways gold, but later on, towards midday, the sky grew overcast and the wind increased, blowing the clouds into an ever-changing panorama of shapes, the light that filtered between them becoming murky and unwholesome. A day for agues and the shivers. Each time I glanced back at John Bradshaw, his expression had grown a little more worried. The weather appeared to be worsening the nearer we got to the coast.

We faced the prospect of being stranded at Dover for several days, perhaps much longer. My hopes rose. Maybe the crossing, everything, would have to be abandoned and we – Eloise, myself, John and Philip, that is – could return home.

Twelve

It was a hopeless dream, of course.

The weather had certainly worsened by the time we reached Dover, great squalls of wind and rain blowing in from the Channel, but no one was going home. John Bradshaw had been adamant about that, and there was no reason for the Armigers to abandon their journey to see Jane's French relations. Their time was their own and they could wait indefinitely for the weather to improve, but I did consider that William Lackpenny's might be limited, forcing him to return to his duties elsewhere.

Eloise was able to disabuse my mind of such a notion. ‘He is, indeed, employed in the household of Sir Edward Woodville,' she told me, as we unpacked our saddlebags once again in the front bedchamber of the little quayside inn where we had all found accommodation for the night, and for however many more nights proved to be necessary. ‘He is a gentleman-in-waiting, but has been granted an extended leave of absence by the steward to visit his sick mother.'

‘In France?'

She laughed. ‘No, stupid! In Salisbury. At least, that's what Master Steward believes. So you see, it would appear to be an afair of the heart, after all. In fact, he told me so and swore me to secrecy.'

‘You seem to have wormed yourself well into his confidence,' I said, shaking out my yellow tunic, now looking somewhat crumpled from its frequent packing and unpacking. ‘When did you discover all this?'

She gave a provocative smile, and for a moment I thought she was going to play silly, coquettish games with me, but then she said, ‘Yesterday evening, after Mistress Armiger and I returned from our walk. We didn't stay out long, it was too cold, and Jane went upstairs to put away her cloak. During our absence, Master Armiger had also gone up to their bedchamber and it was a little while before they both came down again. A circumstance that I fancy didn't please our young friend overmuch, so he decided to flirt with me as a sort of revenge. I was able to extract quite a lot of information from him. I virtually accused him of being in the throes of an affair with her and he's so set up in his own conceit that he couldn't resist admitting it. They met, apparently, when he was sent to Baynard's Castle to arrange some of the details of the banquet with the Duchess of York's high steward – like how many attendants Sir Edward would be bringing with him, their order of precedence at the table and so forth. He says it was love at first sight. He could tell right away that she was unhappy, and once he had clapped eyes on Robert Armiger, he could see why. Their friendship blossomed from there, and on the next occasion he visited the castle, she met him, by prior arrangement, at the top of the water-stairs. That must have been last Monday, when you saw them. The following day, Tuesday, Master Armiger was from home all morning, so Will went to call on Jane at her house near Aldersgate . . . Now, why are you looking like that? As though you'd laid an egg?'

‘Am I?' I queried, attempting to sound offhand and thanking heaven most devoutly for the interruption of a chambermaid arriving at that precise moment with a jug of hot water and the information that supper would be served in the inn parlour in half an hour's time. ‘No reason. No reason in the world. I was just wondering if I wouldn't simply change my hose and wear this green tunic I have on with the blue. What do you think?'

She regarded me straitly, her head tilted to one side. ‘I think you're trying to change the subject as well as your hose. But if you are going to continue wearing green, I shall put on my red dress. We don't want to look like twins.'

With which tart remark, she unfolded the red gown from her saddlebag, along with a clean undershift, pulled the bed-curtains, as was becoming her habit, and vanished behind them.

‘And don't use all the hot water shaving,' she admonished me.

I sat down on the window seat, listening with only half an ear to the drumming of the rain against the closed and bolted shutters, and to the wind whistling eerily between them and the oiled-parchment window panes. My mind was busy going over what Eloise had just told me.

If my smart young gent had spoken truly, then my sighting of him in Stinking Lane was explained. He had been on his way to Aldersgate to take advantage of Robert Armiger's absence and had had nothing to do with Humphrey Culpepper's death. But of course the question was,
had
he been telling the truth? He might well have been. On the other hand, if he was a Woodville spy and had been despatched to follow me and discover the reason for this journey to Paris on the Duke of Gloucester's behalf, he must have worked out by now that whatever Eloise learned she would pass on. Telling her was as good as telling me, and it was an explanation that fitted the facts as I must have grasped them over the past two days.

I sighed and got up to change my brown hose for the blue, then poured some of the hot water into an earthenware bowl in order to shave and wash my face. I felt travel-stained and weary and none too clean. Tomorrow morning, whatever the weather, I should have to brave the pump in the inn yard, although stripping naked in this wind and rain held little appeal. (But I'd known worse. If you've never washed in the snow-broth of a Scottish burn or pump, you don't really understand what cold is.) I dragged a comb through my hair and rubbed my teeth with the willow bark, then sat and waited for Eloise to emerge from behind the bed-curtains, marvelling as she did so at how she always appeared sweet and fresh however many miles we had covered, and however tired she must be.

A particularly vicious gust of wind seized the shutters and rattled them like the teeth in an old man's head.

‘How long do you think we shall be stranded here?' I asked miserably. Every day's delay added another seemingly interminable stretch to the time between me and my final arrival back in Bristol, where my family were eagerly awaiting my return. (Awaiting my return, anyway.)

Eloise glanced up from drying her face and hands, and smiled at me with a surprising amount of sympathy. ‘Roger, I don't know,' she answered gently. ‘Until this wind drops is all I can say. I did overhear the landlord telling Master Armiger that there is a ship at anchor in the harbour, ready to sail to France once the weather breaks.
The Sea Nymph
, I think he said she was called. And once we're aboard, the crossing to Calais doesn't take long. A few hours. Now, if you're ready, shall we go downstairs? I don't know about you, but I could do with my supper.'

The Armigers and William Lackpenny were already in the inn parlour when Eloise and I entered. Jane Armiger was looking pale and slightly tearful, while her husband's face was blotched with angry red patches, as though they had been having a quarrel. Will Lackpenny, on the other hand, was his usual bumptious self, setting out to jolly everyone along and restore harmony to the evening ahead. He did cast an anxious glance at Jane Armiger once or twice, as though solicitous for her welfare, but he could hardly call Robert Armiger to account, as he would no doubt have dearly liked to do.

The inn had grown noisier since our arrival as those locals who had left the shelter of their own firesides and braved the weather were joined in the ale room by sailors from
The Sea Nymph
and another ship lying at anchor in the harbour. Only a narrow passageway, leading to the front door, separated the parlour from the ale room, and it seemed at times as though the general rowdiness – the guffaws, the shouting, the singing of bawdy songs – would drown out our own conversation. Robert Armiger, I could tell, was growing more incensed by the minute, and only the arrival of supper prevented his storming into the other room and presenting its occupants with a piece of his mind. A most ill-advised action had he done so, but fortunately a truly appetizing pigeon pie, followed by equally delicious apricot tartlets, the whole washed down with a light, amber, slightly musky-tasting wine, put him in a better humour. At any rate, he restricted himself to demanding, somewhat peremptorily it's true, but perfectly politely for all that, that the landlord bolted the outer door to discourage further incursions into the inn.